Timeless Monarch: Natalie's Prequel

Natalie Vermillion is the God of Heroes and Heroines.

In the Dream Layer, she hunts monsters, cleans up impossible disasters, and cuts through villains who think they are the center of the story. In waking life, she is a Republic general: disciplined, competent, respected, and increasingly tired of being needed for everything.

Then she starts going downstairs.

At first, it is only to get away from work.

In a restricted basement beneath the Republic base, Natalie finds an intelligence contractor watching old movies while working through cases. He is quiet, capable, strange in ways that do not immediately announce themselves, and apparently content to stay exactly where he is.

Meanwhile, something else waits beneath the Dream Layer.

A prisoner.

A king.

A man everyone seems to know more about than Natalie does.

As the boundary between duty, rest, violence, ambition, and intimacy begins to blur, Natalie finds herself circling the same question in two different worlds:

What do you do with someone powerful enough to change everything, when they have decided not to move?

And what happens when they finally have a reason to?

This prequel follows Natalie before the main events of Timeless Monarch: Astora, exploring the life of the woman who became the God of Heroes and Heroines, the strange quiet relationship that changed her, and the mystery waiting at the bottom of the world.